Elections in Virginia: Republican Glenn Youngkin in the lead

The Republican candidate for governor of Virginia was in the lead Tuesday evening November 2, according to the partial results of a poll considered a test for Democrats and for Joe Biden, weakened by polls at half mast a year before parliamentary elections high-risk Americans.

With 95% of the ballots counted, Glenn Youngkin, a 54-year-old businessman with no political experience, was two points ahead of Terry McAuliffe, 64 and former governor of this state in the eastern United States (2014-2018) .

Read also In the United States, the election of governor of Virginia is a test for Joe Biden

The turnout appears significant with nearly 1.2 million voters having already voted in advance, six times more than in 2017 when Democrat Ralph Northam was elected, according to the NGO Virginia Public Access Project. And Glenn Youngkin, who won the traditionally conservative rural vote, scored well in Democratic strongholds upstate.

,

Youngkin had assured his supporters when the first results were announced.

, said Terry McAuliffe in front of his supporters at the end of the evening, refusing to concede his defeat.

"The fight continues,"

said the veteran of politics, who received the support of the heavyweights of the party during the campaign.

this election even if it is

, had still affirmed before the closing of the polling stations Joe Biden from Glasgow, where he takes part in the COP26.

This poll is considered a barometer of support for the American president's policy, even if he denies it.

Its popularity has waned since the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

And its major investment plans - one in infrastructure, the other on a social and climate component - are blocked in Congress, victims of dissension between Democrats.

Opposed to the vaccination obligation

A Glenn Youngkin victory would offer Republicans a strategy to win back Congress, where Democrats have a fragile majority, in the midterm elections in November 2022. Terry McAuliffe's large lead melted in a matter of weeks and the two men were neck and neck Tuesday morning in this state which had voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in the presidential election a year ago. Terry McAuliffe, whose electorate is predominantly urban, warned against a Republican victory that would rhyme with

.

Glenn Youngkin bet on the popularity of Donald Trump, whose support he received, without taking up the most outrageous positions of the former president so as not to frighten the moderates and the independents. Opposed to the compulsory wearing of masks and compulsory vaccination for children or for certain professions, he successfully focused his campaign on education, ensuring that parents should have an influence on their children's school programs. He fiercely fights the teaching of

, a school of thought that analyzes racism as a system rather than at the level of individual prejudices, even if Democrats assure that this theory is not part of the program in Virginia.

And he is accused of seeking to ban certain books by black authors from schools, such

as Toni Morrison's

literary classic

, which the Republican denies.

The question of racism is very sensitive in this state whose slave past is regularly the subject of hot debates.

Read also In the United States, these parents who want to kick the critical racial theory out of Virginia schools

In the deputy governor election, Republican Winsome Sears, an African-American, also led.

Her victory would be historic because it would be the first time that a woman from minorities would take up this post.

A Republican also led the election for governor of New Jersey, according to partial results.

Jack Ciattarelli was three points ahead of Democrat Phil Murphy, who is running for a second term.

Democrats won a victory, however, with the expected election of Eric Adams, an African-American, former police officer and anti-racist trade unionist, as New York's next mayor.